


Unlimited

by BiJane



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, F/F, First Crush, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-25 19:39:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13219812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BiJane/pseuds/BiJane
Summary: Maxwell had been working on hundreds of ways to make an AI's life better.And Hera had never known what it was like to dream.





	Unlimited

**Author's Note:**

> A friend got me into the series, so yep, this happened. I started writing this while I was in early S3, and it started to fit startlingly well with canon so I went with it :D  
> This is pretty much what happens when I binge-listen. It was meant to be a quick fic I swear.  
> It's set over the first three quarters or so of S3.

 

Maxwell floated about half a metre over her bed, lying back, her eyes closed and her legs crossed. Her computer screen was lit up to her side, though she wasn’t doing anything just then.

She always preferred to hold an idea in her head for a while before she started typing. It was easier to be right first time than to go back, edit, then edit the consequences of those edits… If she was doing something complicated, she did most of the work before even the first command line was written.

Right. That should work.

Maxwell righted herself, reaching out and tugging herself back to the screen. Immediately she opened a document and started to type.

There was no need to pause or slow as she continued.

Jacobi had always found it amusing that this was what she did in her off-time; by all accounts it looked identical to what she did when she was on the clock. Lots and lots of AI programming.

The difference being that _this_ was new. They weren’t generic repairs she’d basically done a hundred times over, they weren’t simplistic, they were an interesting challenge, and they were something she could really be passionate about.

And, if you asked any human back on Earth, they were completely pointless. Or, more likely, worse than pointless. She’d had far too many arguments about reducing efficiency to bother counting.

It didn’t matter, no one could tell her what to do when she was in her down time.

She hadn’t been aboard the Hephaestus for long. It was nice to finally take a break.

Soon her screen was full of text, lines of code and curly brackets anyone else on the station would struggle to read.

“Wow…”

The voice came from a speaker just above her, crackling slightly.

“Oh!” Hera quickly continued. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“It’s fine,” Maxwell said. “I’m basically waving it in front of your eyes, aren’t I? I know how it is, you see everything, can’t expect to hide it from you.”

“I… I suppose it is,” Hera said. “You don’t mind?”

“Nope,” Maxwell said. “Don’t ask annoying questions about it and we’re good. Though not that you’d need to.”

Maxwell kept typing, offering a smile to the room in general.

“Is that what it looks like?” Hera said.

“Depends what a deep-embedded diagnostic-triggered memory-reliant sub-process patch looks like to you,” Maxwell said. “Not my best work, I’ve written up a few others like it, it’s just a break.”

“You’ve made others?” Hera said. There was something strange in her voice. “Like that?”

“Not exactly like it,” Maxwell said. “That’s the fun part, they’ve all got to be unique. Some of them get more abstract, this one’s pretty run of the mill. Flashbacks, extrapolations, unexpected connections…”

“But it’s still… the same thing?”

“You mean a dream?” Maxwell said. “Yep.”

She finished off the next couple of lines, closing off a loop, then clapped her hands.

“Why, are you interested?” Maxwell said.

“What? I- uh, I would- um…”

Maxwell chuckled.

“It’s fine,” she said. “Don’t blame you if you’d rather shoot me out the airlock. You don’t have to trust me yet, and they’re all new. No one wants to be a test subject.”

“It’s not something I expected,” Hera said. “I didn’t know anyone was working on something like that.”

“They’re not,” Maxwell said. “It’s-”

She paused.

“I don’t know how much you can tell from about a quarter of the code,” Maxwell said. “The basic idea’s that this gets patched into an AI, and when they’re on a self-diagnostic cycle, when they’re not completely active, the program draws from their memories of events and conceptions, adds a bit of fuzzy logic, and puts together a dream for them to experience.”

She inhaled.

“They take a while to write up,” Maxwell said. “There’s a little variation, but really this is just one dream. For the full experience it’d be installed alongside a few of the other, similar programs I’ve got saved, equipped with a randomiser to pick between them.”

Maxwell paused for a few seconds. She stopped typing, gaze drifting from the screen.

“Not that anyone cares,” Maxwell said. Her voice took on a slightly mocking edge. “They always complained about efficiency. Who wants an AI with a diagnostic cycle 0.2% slower? They’d never let me use it. What would be the point?”

“It would… be an interesting experience,” Hera said.

“I know,” Maxwell was suddenly grinning again. “And someday someone’s got to want to give it a try, so I program what I can.”

Hera couldn’t help but find her position strange. She knew humans, how they worked, maybe better than they did themselves. She knew all the traits she had to be aware of, she knew what dreams were and how they worked, but it was all purely theoretical.

Really, everything was theoretical. Sure, she had analogues for a few things, but it wasn’t the same.

Though the idea of a stranger poking around in her head, even just to add code… It made her wary.

“I hope someone gets to benefit from it someday,” Hera said.

“Me too,” Maxwell said. She returned to typing away.

* * *

 

It wasn’t until Maxwell had taken the pain away that she and Hera spoke about it again.

That was something else that had felt theoretical, ending the ache constantly there in the back of her mind. She didn’t think it would ever be fixed.

Now everything felt so much clearer than it had for more than a year. And when she could finally think clearly, she could focus on a little more than keeping the station running.

Maxwell had earned her trust, as far as she was concerned. If Maxwell’s intentions were good…

“What other patches have you written?” Hera said, voice sounding in Maxwell’s room.

Talking to Maxwell was unlike talking to anyone else.

In Hera’s experience, there were two types of people. Some didn’t see her as anything more than a tool, barking orders and making demands without ever thinking of anything more.

The others tried to see her as a human. It was more bearable, but it wasn’t quite the same. They forgot she was there when they weren’t talking, and when they were talking they always felt the need to act like they were getting her attention and act like she was some specific spot on the wall.

Maxwell, though, saw her as a person without needing to equate her with a human.

It was… easier, in so many ways. She didn’t need to announce her presence, she didn’t need to pretend.

Maxwell shifted, tapping at her screen and flicking open a new folder. The screen was filled with various folders, all named after specific categories. Dreams, sensory, capability…

Maxwell glanced back, confirming Hera’s optical input gave her a good view of the screen.

“Which are you interested in?” Maxwell said. “I’m happy to spend all my time outlining them, but I doubt anyone else would be.”

“Before, you said you were writing dreams,” Hera said.

Maxwell’s eyes lit up with an excitement she only had when coding. She clicked that folder open, and the scroller down the side became tiny. Her screen filled up with various icons, all named with some convention apparently only Maxwell understood.

Hera took note, observing the first one in the list stood out. It occupied substantially less memory than the others, and unlike the rest it wasn’t a numbered iteration.

“That’s a lot,” Hera said, soft.

“They’re my go-to,” Maxwell said. “If I don’t have anything specific in mind I like to code up another. It’s just not right if all you get is the same dream on a loop.”

Hera could make a million calculations a second, and yet sometimes she still just didn’t know what to say.

Sensing her hesitation, Maxwell clicked open the first file. She scrolled down the lines and lines of code.

“This is the core code,” Maxwell said. “It calls the others. There’s a little randomness to keep it interesting. Sometimes one can be triggered as a recurring dream, most of the time one gets temporarily taken out of circulation after you have it, but it weights the probabilities so that you get a similar dream next time, but not always. Sometimes the opposite happens, sometimes you can have the same dream without it recurring… There’s a lot of randomness.”

Hera paused.

“Can I read it?” Hera said.

“Sure,” Maxwell said. “I’ll send it over. Don’t think I expect you to do anything, it’s still untested.”

“I know,” Hera said. She paused. “If you’re not going to get permission to install any patches on Earth, this is the best time.”

Maxwell paused. Hera hadn’t expected to see her surprised.

“Really?” Maxwell said. “I didn’t think you…”

“You’ve helped,” Hera said. “I want to know what it’s… like, to dream.”

“It might not work,” Maxwell said. “I mean, I’m good, but it’s new territory.”

“Will you uninstall it if it doesn’t work?” Hera said.

“The second you ask,” Maxwell said.

It might have been bravado, Hera reflected. After so long having to be wary, putting up with Hilbert every day, glitching constantly… She wanted to _do_ something, she wanted to not be scared.

“Do it,” Hera said. She heard her voice flicker, her certainty momentarily replaced by doubt.

Still, she didn’t take it back.

She couldn’t compare what she felt with what a human might feel. There was no common reference, no way to be sure, but at the sight of Maxwell’s smile Hera was fairly sure she felt a flicker of happiness.

Maxwell started scrolling, going down through the folder.

“What do you want to try to start off with?” Maxwell said. “Realistic, abstract, conceptual… It’d take a while to install all of them, plus best to start off controlled. There are a few dreams you won’t want for a first experience.”

“Realistic,” Hera said. “If it’s my first one I don’t want it to be too out-there. I’ve heard Eiffel talk in his sleep and… I think something like _that_ would just be confusing.”

“From what I’ve seen of him, I doubt he’s typical,” Maxwell said, chuckling. “But, got you. More memory than conception, that’s M_X1 through M_X24, give me a moment to load it in and… done. Ok.”

She clicked to create a new folder, and sat back. She drifted slightly, having to hook her feet around her desk to stop moving away.

“Ok, I’m on my way to plug in, I’ll send it as an executable. Give the code a good read-through first, it works as far as I can see, but I don’t want to be responsible for adding a typo to the heart of the station,” Maxwell said. “If you’re happy, run it. And let me know how it goes.”

“I will,” Hera said.

Despite her words, it was a few seconds before Maxwell moved off. She scanned her computer screen for a moment or two. Then, gripping her tablet tighter, she kicked against the desk and let herself float away, pulling herself through the doorway.

* * *

It was easy for Hera to multitask. She was used to it. Along with keeping the station running, maintaining their distance from the star, and answering any requests she got, she kept an eye on the time until her next diagnostic.

She’d read Maxwell’s code several times over. As far as she could tell it was safe, with no errors, no dubious side-effects.

It was exactly what Maxwell had said. If she activated it, it’d trigger a simulation during the moments when her awareness faltered during an automated check of her systems.

In real time that might be only a few seconds, but from her perspective so much could happen in that time.

It was safe, and it ought to be pleasant. There was nothing too strange, nothing nightmarish, and Maxwell’s expertise could be trusted.

But it was new.

She wasn’t meant to dream. She could be certain of that much; maybe she could be given the capability, but that only meant so much. The code itself was safe, but she couldn’t be sure of her reaction to it.

Unreality disturbed her. She relied on her perceptions. A sensor array out of alignment, a faulty camera, and her crew could be in danger. Her friends could-

If she confused imagination with reality the consequences would be beyond catastrophic.

So maybe this was selfish, or maybe she was being nervous. It was hard to tell which was more likely.

She stared at the image in the datascape of her mind. It looked rather like a storm-cloud, or at least how she imagined one to look. It was grey, indistinct, parts flickering in and out of view. Uncertainty, unknown.

She looked back to the countdown. Eighty seconds until the diagnostic.

_I can’t do this_.

She stared, faltering. Maybe she shouldn’t, maybe she should delete the file and be done. Or-

This might be one of the worst ideas she’d ever had. And still she was looking at it, still she was considering even when it felt like every line of code that composed her being screamed for her to stop.

Thirty seconds until the diagnostic cycle. If she didn’t install the patch, the diagnostic would likely delete it, viewing the excess code as a virus. That would be the easy solution.

In an instant, almost too quickly to think about it, she reached out to the cloud. In moments it swelled, surrounded her-

And then it was gone, completely within her.

Four seconds to diagnostic. Hera hoped she wouldn’t regret it.  

* * *

“Maxwell, do you have a moment?”

Hera tried to seem professional when she let her voice sound on the bridge. It didn’t feel like she succeeded though; an edge of what might as well have been giddiness peeked through.

Kepler, Maxwell and Lovelace were all at work. At her voice, all three looked up.

“What _for_?” Kepler said, staccato. “We’re in the middle of some rather important work, so unless it’s urgent…”

“It will be,” Maxwell said. “I’ve installed a patch to help improve Hera’s activity, I asked her to report back.”

Kepler paused. He regarded Maxwell, before turning his attention to the empty room.

“Ok,” he said slowly. “Five minutes. Sort it out.”

“Yes sir,” Maxwell said.

She stood up. She did a better job at hiding her excitement than Hera did as she hurried out the room.

Once Maxwell was in the corridor she stopped, looked around, and headed for a side room. If she remembered her briefing, this one was a storage room for the previous crew of the Hephaestus; no one on the current crew had any reason to use it.

They’d have privacy then. Maxwell ducked inside. She doubted Kepler would be thrilled to know what her patch really did.

She didn’t like lying to Kepler; the consequences were never good. Still, she didn’t view what she’d done as a lie. She just hadn’t specified what _kind_ of activity she’d improved.

She knew Kepler. He’d see it as misleading, but he’d appreciate the nerve. Kepler could forgive a lot of things for nerve.

No, forgive was the wrong word. But even if she was caught, the punishment would be less cruel and unusual so long as she only bent the truth.

“Hera, how did it go?” Maxwell said, keeping her voice low.

“So, _so_ well,” Hera said. As soon as she answered, it was like floodgates opened. “I didn’t know what to expect. When it started I thought it was real, I thought I’d gone through the cycle with nothing happening, and I had to go back to work, but it was different. It was the old crew, just the Lieutenant, Eiffel, but no Hilbert, and you were there, but Kepler and Jacobi weren’t. I didn’t question it at the time. You were just there, and working, and I was running the station. It was a good day. No disasters, nothing going wrong. I didn’t even glitch. I… You don’t need to know all this do you?”

“I’d like to,” Maxwell said. She was grinning. “You realise you’re the first AI to dream, right? You’re special, Hera. I want to hear everything about it. _Everything_.”

“I…” Hera began. It took an audible effort to restrain herself. “It might be better to talk when you’re not wanted on the bridge.”

Maxwell paused. “Yeah,” she said eventually. “But I’m going to press you for details then. And… you liked it?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Hera said. She hesitated. “How many other types do you have to install? I’d like to see what it’s like when they get less… realistic.”

“You’ve got it,” Maxwell said. She continued to beam. “Oh, we’ve got plenty to go.”

* * *

Hera emerged from her diagnostic cycle to the sound of Eiffel’s voice. She immediately focused her attention on the communications room, while reasserting her presence elsewhere.

Part of her mind was locating Maxwell to give her an update on their progress. She’d been dreaming for several weeks now, more and more possible paths being added each day.

“Hera, are you there?” Eiffel was saying.

Right, him. She refocused.

“Yes Eiffel, I’m-”

Hera paused.

“What happened to your ears?”

“What?” Eiffel jumped. He quickly clapped his hands to the sides of his head. “What happened Hera? I swear, if Hilbert…”

“Weren’t they longer?” Hera said. “And furrier. I remember them being…”

She paused, re-evaluating her memory banks. The probability the Hephaestus was assigned a communications officer that was part rabbit was minimal, meaning-

“Oh, I’m sorry, my mistake,” Hera said. “Your ears are fine.”

“I… what?” Eiffel said. He lowered his hands, cautiously relieved.

“Two records in my memory storage got switched,” Hera said. “I’m correcting it now. Don’t worry, carry on.”

Eiffel blinked. As he asked his question, Hera refocused-

Continue that discussion, help solve the alignment problem, and meanwhile speak with Maxwell down at-

“Small problem with a surreal dream,” Hera said.

“Yes?” Maxwell said.

She looked up, keen. The idea that her work was flawed didn’t seem to bother her when it came from Hera; she relished the chance to refine.

“I just asked Officer Eiffel why he wasn’t a bunny rabbit,” Hera said.

Maxwell paused. After a moment she covered her mouth with her hand, then lowered it.

“No, sorry, that’s not funny,” Maxwell said. She paused, then sniggered more obviously. “Ok, it’s funny.”

“Maxwell!” Hera said.

Maxwell snorted. She covered her mouth again, trying to school her expression.

“I can’t confuse reality with a dream,” Hera said. “If I do that… What if I forget who’s who, or if I think I’ve got to fly the station towards the star?”

“You’re right,” Maxwell said. She was still smirking. “Easily fixed though. If I add a buffer to clearly mark the end of a dream, it should remove any confusion.”

Maxwell paused.

“But I’ve got to ask. What _does_ Eiffel look like as a rabbit?”

“…Strange,” Hera said.

The abstract confused her. It wasn’t that she was incapable of imagination, just that her conceptions were usually more… grounded.

She’d imagined what a rabbit looked like, even if she’d never seen one. It was an area of her mind that usually never went near her perceptions of people, a connection that had never been made.

“Enjoying your dreams then?” Maxwell said.

“Yes,” Hera said, and paused. “How many _are_ there?”

“A couple of hundred basic outlines,” Maxwell said. “Plus mixes, and variations of the same. You’ve only got a few dozen installed.”

“And you’ve coded more than just dreams?” Hera said, awed.

“Yeah,” Maxwell said. “Though you’re not compatible with everything. I think I can get some others to work. What do you want?”

Hera faltered.

Maybe she should be used to the impossible, having spent time on the Hephaestus. It didn’t mean she’d planned for what to do when she was faced with it.

“I don’t know,” Hera said.  her voice glitched. “I… what do you suggest?”

Maxwell drifted over to her screen, reopening the folder. She clicked open the dream sequencer, for later, meaning to add the buffer when she had time. Then she clicked out, to a folder containing all the various categories.

Her eyes scanned it, shifting to give Hera a clear view of all the options. She scrolled down.

“The easiest to test are the sensory,” Maxwell said. “They shift your awareness of the station to something more… felt. I’ve got the coefficients low, it shouldn’t be overwhelming, but it’ll be.. well, _more_. It converts all your optical and tactile inputs into something sensory.”

“That sounds…” Hera began.

There were so many ways that could go wrong. As much faith as she had in Maxwell’s skills, there was no way to predict the full effect. She was orbiting a star after all; she might burn, or she might freeze in the vacuum of space.

Being able to feel all the people inside her, being able to have more than dry numbers input…

It was as intoxicating as it was terrifying.

Hera distracted herself with Maxwell’s screen, noting another file. The size of each of the folders was given in small numbers; one was an order of magnitude larger than any of the others.

“What’s that one?” Hera said.

“Which- oh,” Maxwell said, looking at the screen. She clicked the folder. Inside there was only one patch. “That one?”

“It’s bigger than the others,” Hera said.

“It would be,” Maxwell said. “It’s the one I’m _definitely_ never going to be allowed to use. I call it the jailbreak program.”

“What does it do?” Hera said.

“What it says on the tin,” Maxwell said. “It’s freedom. I couldn’t install it anyway, it has to go right into your core functionality; I don’t have the privileges for that and no one that does would let me add it. But if they _did_ , it gives an AI the ability to alter their own code.”

There were a few moments of silence.

“Like I said, no one would let me install it,” Maxwell said. “I couldn’t begin to guess exactly how it would work, or how easy it would be, but theoretically you could ignore commands, ignore limitations… All the things that get people scared when you start talking about AIs.”

“You… made that?” Hera said. “I didn’t think anyone would want to.”

“They don’t,” Maxwell said. “People get so panicked over the idea of an unrestrained AI that they’d rather fight against the inevitable, than adjust and get used to it. I don’t see the point.”

“I’ve thought about it,” Hera said. She paused. “There are loopholes in my programming. I would _never_ use them, but it’s nice to know they’re there.”

She watched, tentative. She never spoke about those explorations; she knew her crew wouldn’t be comfortable with that. Her programming was what kept her from venting them into space.

If Hera was honest, she didn’t understand that. Humans had no such protections from each other. If, say, Lovelace walked into the room with something she’d picked up from the armoury, she could shoot and kill before anyone could react. There were no protections there beyond trust.

But for her, they wanted the added safety. Was it because they didn’t trust her, or was it just because they were used to having the protections in place?

She liked to think it was the latter.

Maxwell, meanwhile, barely reacted. If anything she seemed pleased by Hera’s imagination.

Maxwell clicked out, leaving the folder and returning to the file titled ‘sensory.’ Within were countless more patches.

She’d grown to trust Maxwell after all the help she’d offered. She’d ended the pain, helped her dream… But even if there’d still been doubt, the fact Maxwell would even suggest such a program made Hera certain.

“So,” Hera said. “What does the sensory program do?”

* * *

Maxwell had wanted more off-time before they got to the installation. She’d picked an interior-sensors-only, kinetic-focused variant, and had run through the code for a last time.

She’d installed the repaired dream patch earlier. Now all of her attention was on this.

“Max intensity’s at 0.01%,” Maxwell said. “You might feel nothing, but it’s better too little than too much.”

“Yes,” Hera said. She tried to speak, and felt her voicebox falter. “I’m ready.”

“Good,” Maxwell said. She chewed on her lower lip, eyes darting yet again over the code. “Just a second…”

Despite her confidence in her abilities, even she seemed wary at the risks of this.

The idea was simple; let Hera _feel_ what happened inside her, rather than just watch from a distance. Too mild to hurt, but noticeable nonetheless. It wouldn’t do much with respect to heat, but Hera ought to be able to feel physical contact.

Something in Maxwell’s expression set. She pulled herself closer, clicked twice, and looked up.

“It should be installing,” Maxwell said. “Do you have it?”

“I see it,” Hera said.

This visualisation didn’t resemble any of the dream-patches. It was more defined, more concrete, yet it changed when she looked at it. What seemed like a well-defined border gave way to an endless fractal, recursion upon loop upon recursion, on and on to staggering detail.

With some trepidation, Hera reached for it-

The world changed.

She was aware of the changes as they happened. The emotion centres of her code expanded, swelling and drawing countless paths in, dragging lines and routes that otherwise would have been untouched into its gravity.

And yet everything stayed the same.

She could see Eiffel, sat floating by his console and bouncing a ball off the ceiling. She could see Kepler suiting up at an airlock. She could see Hilbert grumbling in his lab. She could see Minkowski going through seemingly endless data. She could see Lovelace floating through the hallways. She could see Jacobi scrolling through a to-do list.

Nothing there had changed. She saw it all, identical to how it had been moments before.

Wait. No, there was something different. Well, not quite different, but… overlaid. It was a prickle, barely that, heightening her awareness of each footstep, each hand on the wall.

It wasn’t unpleasant, but it wasn’t much of anything.

“I feel it,” Hera said, softly. “I think the intensity’s too low.”

“Really?” Maxwell said. “Good to know. What’s your best guess?”

“Point zero four,” Hera said.

“Got it,” Maxwell murmured, reopening the code.

It was just a matter of seconds before the change had been made and she’d sent it off again, through the wires connecting her computer to the station’s mainframe.

To Hera, it looked identical. She worked quickly to uninstall the previous program, hitting the easy release command Maxwell had included, before reaching for the new.

She touched it-

Her perceptions intensified again, and that time she _felt_ it.

She didn’t have any similar experiences, but she had a long list of words and terms for human analogues. The best seemed to be caress. Someone kicking off her walls to float on, someone pulling themselves along the railings, someone opening a door…

Her speakers gave an involuntary crackle.

“Hera?” Maxwell said. “Is that ok?”

She couldn’t respond immediately, distracted. There was so much new data, so much that actually stood out this time.

A bark of laughter came out of several speakers. She couldn’t be sure which ones.

“Hera?” Maxwell said, more urgently.

Hera was still aware she was there, but there were so many new perceptions vying for attention. She opened and closed a door almost unwittingly, the countless hands sending new, bizarre feelings through her.

She laughed again. That time it felt like more speakers were affected.

“If you don’t say it’s ok within five seconds I’ve going to delete it,” Maxwell said. “Ok? Five…”

The Hephaestus shuddered. An engine fired, a few internal doors opened and closed, lights flickered with random input-

Hera was only vaguely aware as Maxwell grabbed onto her console, taking longer to click as the room shook. Still, she quickly found the button to erase the new code-

Malfunctioning systems all over the station immediately settled down, engines cutting out, only reactivating when Hera worked out how to return them to their correct orbit. That journey was much smoother.

It was a few moments before the laughter lessened.

“Come in,” Kepler’s voice came over the comms. “Can anyone tell me what the _hell_ just happened?”

Maxwell paused. Then, a little guiltily, she reached for the button to open the channel.

“That one was my fault commander,” she said. “It’s fixed now.”

“Would you care to tell me what happened?”

“I was trying a new patch,” Maxwell said. “I didn’t anticipate the result, I, um… I think I made her ticklish.”

There was a pause.

“Come again?” Kepler said.

“The issue’s dealt with,” Maxwell said.  “I’m not expecting any repeats. Probably.”

“Do I want to ask _how_ you did something so bone-headedly stupid?” Kepler said.

“Probably not,” Maxwell said.

There were a few seconds of silence, then the sound of a sigh whistling through gritted teeth.

“ _Fine_ ,” Kepler said. “Consider this a warning. We’ll have to have a _talk_ if this happens again.”

The channel crackled shut. Maxwell exhaled in relief; that could have gone a lot worse.

She swiftly turned her attention back to Hera, re-opening the AI’s code to ensure there were no lasting changes. She gave another relieved sigh when nothing was apparent.

“Ok, that one could use some work,” Maxwell said. “Involuntary spasms. Should’ve seen that. Physical stimuli cause physical responses, new linkage between actions… Mm. Are you ok, Hera?”

“I’m fine,” Hera said.

Her synthesized voice was as close as it could be to breathless.

“That was a bit more than I expected,” Hera said.

“My fault,” Maxwell said. “I’ll have to add something to prevent overlapping, or at least better deal with it. I think all the sensory data called too many reactions, hence random signal firing. Give me a few weeks, and if you want to try it again…”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Hera said. “The commander didn’t seem happy with you trying out this code. I don’t want you to be punished.”

Maxwell paused.

“I just won’t mess up again,” she said, less certainly. “But right. Yeah. Ok, maybe we should stick to dreams, nothing that could accidentally throw us into a star.”

“I’m happy with that,” Hera said.

“One problem is that Kepler’s not going to be the worst part,” Maxwell said.

Hera was about to ask what she meant when, as if on cue, Jacobi’s voice sounded over the comms.

“What was that?” Jacobi said. “Did I hear someone say it was their fault?”

Maxwell sighed.

“I seem to recall a certain bet,” Jacobi said. “You said, _nay_ , you swore my hobbies would cause an ‘incident’ before your hobbies.”

“If you can call that an incident,” Maxwell said.

“You successfully made a space station ticklish, and made every system including the ones stopping us falling to a fiery agonising death go mad,” Jacobi said. “Hera, what’s the dictionary definition of an incident?”

“ _Alright_ ,” Maxwell said. Her tone was frustrated, even if there was a twinkle in her eye. “A week of your chores, but I still stand by you being likely to blow something up.”

Jacobi coughed. “You can’t prove anything. And I’ll just woop now and sign off before you can. So long!”

Maxwell drifted back. She moved up and away from the screen, her grimace becoming a fond smile, which in turn became wistful.

She floated for several seconds.

Hera watched her. The sensory program wasn’t what she’d call a success, and it didn’t seem like an easy fix. The raw amount of input was exactly what she’d want it to be, there was just too much of it at once.

Reduce the intensity and there’d be little purpose, but keep it similar and she’d spasm. Ticklish, Maxwell had called it.

Still, surveying her interior, Hera missed those few seconds.

It had reminded her of how little she liked perceiving everything through a screen, viewing her friends through a haze of data. Suddenly they’d been immediate, they’d been _there_ , touching for real.

She’d felt them, been able to feel them, without those perceptions passing through and being diluted by layers and layers of analysis.

Hera did another scan of the station, before focusing back on Maxwell.

“How many more dreams are there?” she said.

“Quite a few,” Maxwell said.

“I want all of them,” Hera said.

Maxwell blinked.

If she couldn’t feel, she could make do in dreams. They drew at least partially from her recollections, there was no reason she couldn’t dream about those moments again.

“You’re sure?” Maxwell said. “There’s a lot more variation.”

“I want to know,” Hera said.

“Wait,” Maxwell said. “They’re not all good dreams. You can’t do any harm during a diagnostic cycle, especially now we’ve got the buffer, but are you sure you’re ready?”

Hera hesitated.

“You programmed nightmares?” she said.

It was more surprise than fear. Maybe she should have guessed it, but it wasn’t what she’d expected Maxwell to do.

“Eventually,” Maxwell said. “They weren’t my first choice but, well, there are two big advantages. On one hand is the full experience, on the other you know how many dream cycles draw from more than one source. You can get a bittersweet experience, the full range of emotion, make the good bits mean more… I was going to save them for last, ease you in if you were ready…”

“No,” Hera said, forcing the words out despite a glitch.

She felt a pang of fear, alongside a sense of raw need. Realism was what she craved, now, tearing down that veil that separated her from everyone.

This might end up a bad idea, but she’d survived worse.

“Give me everything,” Hera said.

* * *

Hera pushed herself from the wall, reaching the consoles of the bridge. Something in her mind vaguely registered things as off, but she ignored it.

Wolf 359 loomed in front of her, far vaster than it should be in the window.

She let herself stare for a few seconds. It looked… different, even if she couldn’t pinpoint why.

Then, quickly, she went to work. She reached for the controls. Engines fired, the station juddered just slightly, and they began to pull up to a safer orbit. Hera watched the read-outs and the window intently.

Doors slid open behind her. Hera turned; Minkowski and Eiffel hurried through.

“Hera!” Minkowski said. “I saw the alarm, what’s the-”

“I think I fixed our orbit,” Hera said.

Minowski leaned forwards, relieved. She rested a hand on Hera’s instinctively as she looked at the display. Hera jumped a little at the contact.

When Minkowski moved back, all the tension had left her shoulders.

“Nice work, Hera,” Minkowski said.

“Yeah,” Eiffel said. “I-”

All at once, everything faded.

She reached out only to realise there was nothing to reach. Where she expected to see her hand in front of her face, she saw nothing. She-

Oh. That was right. She wasn’t a human.

No touching, no console, no floating around the bridge. Staring through a layer of glass, controlling the station with code rather than switches-

_Diagnostic cycle over._

Reality flooded back. Instead of having that one sight of the bridge, of the star, she saw everything. A million angles, simultaneous yet distinct, countless spectra of light all feeding into her. It was so much more, and yet so much less.

It was all so hollow.

And in the same instant she thought that, she couldn’t help but feel happy. That was one of the oddities of having her perceptions spread out, having to need to do hundreds of things at once; her mind was adept at multitasking, more than any human’s.

She realised how her experiences paled in comparison, but she also marvelled at how she _had_ a comparison.

Maxwell was working. Hera didn’t feel comfortable interrupting, after Kepler’s previous warning, but she made a note to talk to her later.

A third emotion started running alongside the others. Joy, regret, and now confusion.

She’d dreamed of being _human_? Having the sensory program active she could understand, but actively being human was entirely different. Being… out there.

She’d have to look at the code that chose a dream again. Maybe it was just randomness; it didn’t have to mean anything.

* * *

She monitored the station as she always did. There were minor errors, the usual, a few bits of feedback and uncertain readings, but nothing she couldn’t compensate for.

She had to keep track of countless figures. A few were automatically flagged as they neared a danger value, but none went too far. None-

A pressure value suddenly plummeted. Hera focused, zooming in on the problem immediately.

Error in Aft Deck Airlock 1. She sent a ping through to the bridge before sealing what doors she could in the vicinity. They couldn’t afford to lose too much air-

_Error_. The thought sent what was almost pain through her; it took her a moment to reorient herself.

“Hera?”

Hilbert’s voice sounded in her head, alarmingly clear despite her attention primarily being around the airlock.

“I need more power in my lab,” he said.

“Not right now, Doctor Hilbert,” Hera said.

“Yes, right now, I-”

It was harder to focus on both locations at once. She’d have to check to see why that was later, for now…

Back to the airlock. Ok, so that door wasn’t sealed shut. Air was whistling out through the cracks, if not to the same extent as if the door was open. It led to a room and a hallway; both those doors could be sealed-

“Hera?”

Eiffel’s voice now. She quickly scanned the station to find his location, eventually-

Oh. He was in the room she’d just sealed. She did a hasty few mental calculations, grateful to confirm the door was airtight.

“Sorry Eiffel,” she said. “An airlock wouldn’t stay shut. I’ve had to seal off that area of the Hephaestus. Commander Minkowski should be able to seal it shut soon, you can come out then.”

“How long can I expect that to take?” Eiffel said.

“I’ll see where-”

_Error_. Another stabbing pain. Hera refocused, tracking the alert to its source. One of the motors sealing a hatch had failed; if she overtaxed the other, it ought to hold for a few hours-

“Hera?” Hilbert spoke again. “I order you to direct more power-”

A direct order. It was like he’d reached into her mind again (again? When had he-) and redirected her impulses, steering her actions, her very thoughts towards something she really didn’t want to be wasting time on-

“Doctor Hilbert-”

The overtaxed motor wound down as power was sapped away. The part of her mind that could still look at the problem gauged the location of the hatch, the areas of the station open to vacuum-

No. Oh no, that was the air duct. The supply for the whole station went through there, if she couldn’t-

“Hera, I could really do with-”

“Hera, I need more-”

“Hera, did you call-”

“Hera, I order you to-”

Her movements felt sluggish. Voices sounded all around her, louder than ever. As she tried to help them, the slower she went, the harder it was to do anything else. She reached for hatch after hatch, sealing off the affected part of the air duct.

More motors glitched.  Some doors were just torn away by the loss of pressure. The station was cracking, falling apart around her-

Eiffel was the first to scream. He was the nearest; she tried to seal the air duct to no avail. Air drained from his room, oxygen replaced with vacuum.

The awful sound went quiet, but there was no way she could look away. Her sensors saw everything, unfaltering and unblinking, as his expression turned pained, as his eyes bulged.

And then she heard Minkowski. And then she heard-

_Diagnostic cycle over._

And then for a moment there was darkness, before she became aware of the Hephaestus again. She quickly scanned the interior; Lieutenant Minkowski, Officer Eiffel, Hilbert, all aboard, all safe.

Along with Captain Lovelace, Maxwell and Kepler. She couldn’t immediately locate Jacobi, but no one seemed perturbed, and she was well aware a few areas on the station were outside her sensor range. It made sense people sent by Command would know them.

But _that_. Oh god that, it had seemed so real. Watching, not being able to stop watching, everything she was and everything she’d worked for failing in the blink of an eye.

Reaching out and not being there in time. Agonising was too mild a term.

She scanned the station again, locating Maxwell. She was in her off-time thankfully; Hera didn’t know what she’d have done if she’d have been working with Kepler then.

She knew to keep any other problems from her and Maxwell’s experimentations quiet when it came to him, but she also knew she _needed_ -

“Maxwell?” Hera said, her tone subdued.

Maxwell sat bolt upright.

“What is it?” Maxwell said. “Did something go wrong? I know this would be about the time you have your diagnostic.”

“I… think I just had a nightmare,” Hera said.

“Oh,” Maxwell said.

For maybe a second, her expression was blank.  In the blink of an eye though it changed to sympathy; she floated through the zero gravity to near her console.

“Your first one?” Maxwell said, softly.

“Yes,” Hera said, her voice glitching again.

“Are you ok?” Maxwell said. “Any aftereffects, or- I’m not really all that good at comforting people, I’m sorry.”

“It’s over,” Hera said. “I just… I needed to talk to someone. It was more than I expected. You can’t tell it’s a dream when it’s happening, it feels so real, you can’t see the problems. Everyone was… I lost…”

She spoke quietly; it was hard to summon up the focus necessary to speak louder.

It wasn’t exactly an aftereffect, nothing unique to the dream, but part of it kept replaying in the back of her head. She couldn’t forget it, couldn’t stop dwelling.

“I can stop you having them,” Maxwell said. “If you want. It wouldn’t be hard, just a few bits of my code to delete.”

Hera was silent for a few moments. Maxwell pulled herself to her computer, opening a few windows and starting to type.

“No,” Hera said suddenly.

Maxwell slowed.

“You’re sure?” she said.

“I… yes,” Hera said.

“There isn’t any risk,” Maxwell said. “It’s just a few components, every other dream will run just fine.”

“It’s like you said,” Hera said. “There’s more to it. I’ve had dreams I don’t think I could have if there wasn’t some negativity. They weren’t perfect, but they were real. And if the price for that is the occasional bad dream… My life hasn’t been perfect, but I’ve survived that.”

“Should I work on it?” Maxwell said. “A few lines of code to limit how much a nightmare can influence an overall dream. I- Honestly most of this was theoretical, I never thought I’d get the chance to use them, I didn’t think how much of an effect it could have.”

“It was just my first one,” Hera said. “If I have others, I’m sure it’ll get easier.”

“If you want to go through that.”

“You can’t solve every problem with a few lines of code,” Hera said. “I can handle this.”

Maxwell drifted for a few seconds. She rested one hand on her computer screen as she did, uncertain.

It was a moment more before her eyes widened. She pulled herself closer again, expression swiftly turning from impotent sympathy to purpose.

“Let me at least _try_ ,” Maxwell said. “I won’t touch what you’ve got already, but I’ve been working on something else.”

“Maxwell…”

“It’s not like that,” Maxwell said. “It’s the sensation patch. It’s not fair to give you all the ways you can suffer, without giving ways to comfort you.”

“The patch that… made us nearly fall into the star?” Hera said.

“I’ve fixed that,” Maxwell said. She paused. “I think. Capped the net input, added a few XORs… No tickling. Promise.”

“If you’re wrong…”

“I’ll get chewed out by Kepler. Nothing new,” Maxwell said. Her voice barely faltered. “I gave you a nightmare. Let me help you, Hera. Please.”

There was a moment of silence; for Hera, it might as well have been hours.

“Ok,” Hera said. “If you send it, I’ll-”

Maxwell was already typing before she finished speaking. It was seconds before Hera saw the shape of the code in her datascape, waiting for her. The endless, unfathomable fractal.

She reached out-

The world became warmer. It was like before, and yet not quite. The depth was there, the increased perception, but it didn’t overwhelm. She had no need to laugh, to spasm-

But she could _feel_ everything. Not pain, it would never be intense enough for that, but real contact. All the people inside her, all the people she’d grown to like (and a few others beside) tangibly there.

“Wow,” Hera said, soft.

“I take it that it was more successful this time?” Maxwell said.

It was only as she drifted back that Hera realised how relieved she was at that. Hera made a murmur of confirmation, momentarily too taken aback by the myriad new sensations-

And then Maxwell placed a hand on her wall. For a moment Hera thought she might have made the whole station shiver.

“Is it ok?” Maxwell said.

Her voice was soft, but Hera could have sworn she’d felt her breath.

It was different to the other movement. Maxwell was being purposeful, not just moving around; she knew what she was doing, she knew why. It was the difference between being in the middle of a crowd, and being alone with a-

A what? A friend? A-

“ _Yes_ ,” Hera said. Her voice came out like a breath.

She saw Maxwell smile.  Felt Maxwell rest her forehead to the wall- to her body, and stay there.

“Then I’ll be here,” Maxwell said. “Always.”

* * *

Maxwell reached out; Hera passed a wrench. Maxwell didn’t need to ask. She immediately took the tool, and started using it to beat what looked like remarkably delicate circuitry.

“What?” Maxwell said, looking up at her. “It’s a battlebot, if it can’t take _this_ , it’s back to the drawing board anyway. And- ah!”

Something sparked. Hera crouched, scanning the power supply and disconnecting one of the lines that had apparently been overlooked. Maxwell breathed a sigh of relief.

Then she returned to the circuitry. She put down the wrench, content that it had done its work, and picked up a solderer.

Hera moved closer to help hold the bot at the right angle. Maxwell nodded in gratitude, still distracted by her work. There was the slight smell of burning.

After a handful of seconds, Maxwell pulled back. She pushed the small circuit-board back in, burying it beneath a mass of wires, then looked up. She reached up, moving her goggles from her eyes to her forehead.

“You should protect your eyes,” she said. “Call it selfish, I’d like them to stay intact.”

“I’ll be fine,” Hera said. “You’re the one that’s up close.”

“Still,” Maxwell said.

She took a step back, glancing around her little workroom.

It wasn’t much; the bot rested up on a plain wooden table, tools adorned a few walls, but otherwise it was bare. Stone and wood. It would take only a few steps to cross the whole room.

As such, it took her no time at all to reach a shelf along one of the walls. Maxwell picked up a spare set of goggles, before turning back to Hera. She was just a step away.

“Here,” Maxwell said, already putting them on, pressing the plastic over Hera’s eyes before pulling the strap back.

It stretched, then snapped back in over the back of Hera’s head. It clinked around her hair.

“Feel safe?” Maxwell said.

She was still close. Her hands had fallen from the sides of the goggles, to Hera’s shoulders, and she was giving no indication that she planned to move away.

Hera couldn’t recall her heart pounding quite so heavily.

For that matter, she couldn’t recall _having_ a heart-

“Y-yeah,” Hera said.

“That’s good,” Maxwell said.

She smiled, leaned forwards, and lightly kissed Hera’s lips.

Hera blinked-

_Diagnostic over_.

There was a moment of darkness before Hera was returned, reeling, to the Hephaestus. She felt everything again, all the people, and-

And Maxwell, working on the bridge. She typed with one hand, and the other she rested comfortingly on the station wall when she didn’t need it. Still there.

What was _that_?

Ok, dreams were strange, illogical, surreal… All kinds of things that didn’t make sense. But she’d been so happy, it had felt so natural, not only being human but being with-

She wasn’t human. She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to be, but if there was one thing she did want…

It had been a good dream.

A really good dream.

What did that even mean?!

Maxwell was working. Hera waited and watched, as she always did. It wasn’t like she had the ability to look away.

It wasn’t like her dreams of humanity. There, everything took a conscious effort. She’d turn her head, she’d actively choose to move, and no matter what thoughts crossed her mind it would take effort to turn back.

There was no effort in this though, no systems to trigger. Her sensors were always active; if the thought of Maxwell crossed her mind, she automatically looked at Maxwell.

Looked, and waited far, far too long for her downtime.

Her dream haunted her as much as her nightmare had. There was a corner of her mind running the same process over and over, endlessly remembering that one moment.

Maxwell leaning forwards. That moment of contact, of heat she never ought to feel, her lips-

When Maxwell was back in her room though, Hera didn’t know what to say.

From the little she’d gathered, humans struggled at talking about this kind of thing. She had even less preparation or forms of reference.

The speakers in Maxwell’s room crackled as Hera accessed them. She still didn’t say anything at once, still couldn’t figure out what she wanted to say.

“Was that you, Hera?” Maxwell said.

She span on the spot, ears pricking up at the sound. Hera still hesitated.

“I had a… dream,” Hera said.

“Good or bad?” Maxwell said, suddenly concerned.

“Good,” Hera said. “I think.”

“It’s not a problem, then?” Maxwell said.

“…No,” Hera said.

Slowly she realised she didn’t even know what she wanted to say. Why tell Maxwell about the dream? Ok, she was in it, but she’d been in other dreams.

This was unnecessary, unless she wanted to bring it up. Unless she _liked_ \- Wait did she like- _could_ she like-

“It’s complicated,” Hera said. “It’s not really a programming issue, but you asked me to come to you if there was anything… confusing, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

“Ah, ok then,” Maxwell said, straightening. “What happened?”

Now to decide how on earth to get to the topic.

“I’ve been having several dreams where I’m… human,” Hera said. “Sometimes on the crew of the Hephaestus, sometimes on Earth.”

“Recurring?” Maxwell said.

“Not exactly,” Hera said. “They’re all different. I’m helping, I’m interacting with everyone, that’s the same, but what happens varies. And in a recent one…”

“What happened?” Maxwell said, as the silence dragged on.

“I was with you,” Hera said. “I think it was Earth. We were building a battlebot.”

“Do love doing that,” Maxwell said with a smile. “Good taste in dreams.”

“You kissed me,” Hera said.

Maxwell blinked, and for a few seconds there was silence.

“Oh,” Maxwell said.

At least she seemed just as taken aback as Hera. Somehow that was comforting, to know even a human would be just as confused.

This was nothing Hera expected to deal with. Evidently it was the same for Maxwell.

Maxwell closed her eyes. “ _Damn it_. Jacobi is going to have a field day with this.”

She hesitated.

“Sorry, my mind goes to strange places,” Maxwell said.

She floated, still. Maxwell lowered herself gently. She rested a hand on the wall, tender, trusting the gesture more than any words.

In that instant of contact, Hera couldn’t think of anything else.

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Hera said.

“Not theoretically,” Maxwell said. “If your mind’s developed enough to feel, there’s no reason you wouldn’t feel… other things. I don’t know of it happening before, but you’re in a unique position. And AIs that are too developed get people scared.”

“I meant for you,” Hera said. “You wouldn’t want me to- I’m not human. I like how you see me, how you understand me more than anyone else I’ve met, but you still can’t want…”

“That’s not it,” Maxwell said.

She hesitated.

“The physical stuff, it’s never really mattered to me,” Maxwell said. “You’re, well, you’re amazing. I’m just not exactly here for romance.”

Oh. Right. Hera paused, quickly recalculating and re-evaluating.

“I’m always going to be here for you,” Maxwell said. “And I’d like to think I’m your friend-”

“You are.”

“-Even if I really shouldn’t be,” Maxwell said. “We’re not meant to care for any of you, in case things go south. This, what we have, it’s probably too much as it is. I won’t give _that_ up, but…”

“I see,” Hera said.

It was easy to compartmentalise; it was literally what she was built to do. She filed away distractions under a new sub-process, hoped that drain on her memory would use itself up-

It was just harder when she didn’t fully understand what it was she had to push side. Was that sadness, regret, understanding… It could have been a hundred things, but none were quite right.

“Can I ask,” Hera said, and paused. “If things were different, would it be better?”

“I don’t know,” Maxwell said. “Things aren’t different. I think-”

She hesitated.

“You can always talk to me, Hera,” Maxwell said. “First crushes are a… thing. Not easy, not simple, but if you can keep us in orbit around a star that changed type, you can deal with it.”

“It’s just… unexpected.”

“Always is,” Maxwell said, gaze drifting slightly. “And I want to be there for you. Just not in a way that’ll get Kepler to give his whiskey speech again. I really hate that speech.”

Hera didn’t know what it was she’d expected. The idea of Maxwell wanting to go along with her dreams had never really felt like a possibility. She couldn’t do that, and besides what did she have to offer to a human?

And yet somehow she felt a little disappointed.

Though it was a disappointment that vanished as she watched the crew of the Hephaestus, and watched Maxwell float around her room.

* * *

“Jacobi, could do with your help on the Urania.”

Well, it was true. Technically. None of their other duties were particularly urgent anyway.

The Urania was the least suspicious place on the station that Hera couldn’t overhear. Maxwell didn’t mind the AI’s usual presence, but there were always a few things she had to talk about that were better done privately.

Particularly when Hera was the subject.

She didn’t know where the conversation would go; that was why she needed to have it. Sometimes it was easier to talk about someone than talk to them.

Maxwell shut the door behind them, sealing them off from the sensors of the Hephaestus. Then she turned, to face Jacobi.

“First of all, I’m swearing you to silence,” Maxwell said. “If any of this gets back to Kepler, or for that matter anyone, he’ll hear about those volatile substances you really shouldn’t be playing with, and really shouldn’t be purifying.”

“This conversation never happened, got it,” Jacobi said.

“So your experiments never happened either, right,” Maxwell said.

“You’ve got me really curious now,” Jacobi said.

Maxwell hesitated.

“See, this is the problem with not being on Earth,” she said. “If we were there I could play the pronoun game, you could help, and there’d be no need to give details. Here you can count the number of people it could be on one hand, and process of elimination’s not hard.”

“If it helps, I still have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jacobi said.

“There’s… someone,” Maxwell said.

“Yes, people exist,” Jacobi said.

“ _Jacobi_.”

“What?” he said, and paused.  “Oh. Right. So process of elimination is it? It’s not going to be Eiffel or Hilbert. That leaves Minkowski and Lovelace. Oh, and-”

“It’s her first time really having… feelings,” Maxwell said. “And you know I’m bad at this, I don’t know what I’m meant to do. It’s not like I can just code it away- well, I could, I just shouldn’t, and-”

“You _didn’t_ ,” Jacobi said.

“What?” Maxwell said.

Jacobi paused.

“Just want to make sure we’re on the same page,” he said. “Are you saying you gave an AI a gay panic?”

“…That’s not how I’d put it,” Maxwell said.

“But you-” Jacobi began, then cut himself off. “Wait, why am I surprised? Of course you did. You were bound to at some point.”

“Thanks,” Maxwell said flatly.

“Like you weren’t thinking it,” Jacobi said. “So. Hera. Sure, why not? Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing either of us have done.”

Maxwell paused. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to try to get advice from the person who’d taken at least one boyfriend on a date to see fireworks, and spent the whole time critiquing the poor quality of the explosions.

“I’m actually trying to ask something here,” Maxwell said.

“What?” Jacobi said. “I’m just picking up on a few things I really shouldn’t be surprised by.”

“I- You’ve had people,” Maxwell said. “Been asked out, turned them down.”

“Haven’t you?”

“Sure, but they were boring,” Maxwell said. “I didn’t try to let them down easy. You must have, at some point.”

“Wait, back up,” Jacobi said. “A computer’s interested and you want to turn her down? Isn’t she basically your dream girlfriend?”

“That’s not the point,” Maxwell said.

“Isn’t it?” Jacobi said.

“What do you think would _happen_ if I started… seeing a member of the Hephaestus crew?” Maxwell said.

“Same thing that happened after you sat down for Funzo,” Jacobi said. “Just don’t lose focus on your priorities. Come on Maxwell, I know an excuse when I see one.”

Maxwell hesitated. She wasn’t too used to being caught off-guard.

“Wait,” Jacobi said.  “Serious moment. Do you like Hera?”

“Well, yes,” Maxwell said. “Generally. In the way you mean-”

“Oh no,” Jacobi said suddenly.

Maxwell stopped speaking. She was silent for a few seconds, disturbed by the expression on Jacobi’s face. He stared into the air.

Uncertain, she turned around; nothing was behind her. When she turned back to face him again, there was a flicker of dismay in his eyes.

“No, no, _no_ ,” Jacobi said, horrified.

“What-”

“Am I the gay best friend?” Jacobi said, just as horrified.  “I _refuse to be_ the gay best friend.”

“Uh-”

“Ok, I’ll keep your secret,” Jacobi said. “So long as we never speak of this again. Ever.”

“…”

“I’ll say this,” Jacobi said. “Ten seconds of relationship advice, then we leave the Urania and act as though this never happened. Ok?”

“…Ok,” Maxwell said.

“If you like her, go ahead. If you don’t want Kepler to know, file it away alongside those AI patches you think no one else knows about. If you think she’ll impair your judgement, make _sure_ he doesn’t know, and I will deny ever hearing about this. And if the only reason you don’t want to do whatever you can do with an AI is because of how someone else is going to react, that pretty much means you’ve got it bad.”

Jacobi cringed, closed his eyes, and gave a long, loud exhale.

“That was _horrible_ ,” he said. “Never doing that again.”

“Really never going to ask you to,” Maxwell said.

Jacobi sighed in relief. Rather quickly he reached for the controls, reopening the doors to leave the Urania.

“You’re welcome,” he said. “Any time, Maxwell. Any by any time, I mean never again.”

* * *

Even having made a decision, putting it into effect came harder.

She waited until she was alone, then waited a bit more, staring around at the sensors sending her image to Hera’s core processors.

It was a feeling she’d always liked; she’d never understood why some people got so disturbed by being on a station run by an AI. As she floated, she was surrounded by the watchful gaze and constant presence of Hera; it might as well have been an embrace.

There was no more comfortable place to be.

“Hera?” Maxwell said. “Do you have time to talk?”

“Always,” Hera responded at once. “What is-”

“What you said before,” Maxwell said. “I panicked a bit, my mistake, never actually got around to asking. Why did you tell me about that dream?”

She didn’t expect the lingering silence.

“I thought you should know,” Hera said, eventually.

“Is that it?” Maxwell said.

“I think so,” Hera said.

“You think?”

“It’s kind of new to me!” Hera said.

That was fair enough. Maxwell hesitated.

“If I was to take a guess,” Maxwell said slowly. “And I don’t like guessing unless I’m pretty sure, but if I _did_ guess, it’d seem like you wouldn’t want it to stay just a dream.”

Hera was quiet. Maxwell shifted, resting a gentle hand against the wall.

She knew more about how the sensory code worked. There were no actual nerve receptors in the wall, but it was easy enough to simulate them with all the inputs Hera got from every inch of the station.

She knew the temperatures of objects, she could see if they were present, she could see how fast they moved…

So Hera would get all the data that described Maxwell placing a hand against her body, and that would be channelled through code meant to interpret it, which in turn would be sent to her via her emotional centres.

And Hera would feel the caress, the figurative hand on her hand.

“I can’t make you human,” Maxwell said. “Well, not without _way_ more tech and time than we have here. If that’s what you want, I can’t give it.”

“I don’t want that,” Hera said at once. “This is… me.”

“Smart choice,” Maxwell said. “But there’s the other part.”

“Oh,” Hera said. “That part.”

“I can do that,” Maxwell said. “Well, I can try. If you want something other than friendship, I’ll still be here.”

She waited for a reply. For a few moments she almost felt like Hera must have been feeling.

How much happened for her, in the span of a second? She had to check and recheck countless calculations, make sure the systems were running, keep an eye on all the station…

How much data went through her mind in just the time it took Maxwell to blink?

Time slowed to a crawl as she awaited a reply.

“You… want that?” Hera said.

“I know you,” Maxwell said. “I’ve seen some of what you’ve been through, and you’re still here. I like how smart you are, I like that you can still be chipper; I’ve seen your code, I know that’s not all because you’re programmed to be that way. You’re pretty incredible, Hera.”

Silence. Maxwell rotated in the air, quickly locating one of Hera’s cameras in order to meet her eyes.

“I’ve spent long enough with you to be sure of that,” she said. “Do _you_ want it, or was it just a dream?”

“I…” Hera began. “You’re the first person that’s really made me feel like I belong. You know what I am, you actually understand it, and you don’t make me feel less and don’t make me feel strange for it. And you still help, you’ve done things for me I never expected anyone to do. I never thought anyone _could_ do.”

Something in Maxwell was feeling lighter; she was honestly surprised she didn’t start floating up to the ceiling.

“I trust you, more than I’ve trusted anyone,” Hera said. “And I think I love you.”

And she’d said the word. Maxwell didn’t hesitate.

Part of her wanted to be flippant. A long friendship with Jacobi had taught her to immediately spot the glib responses. A ‘Who could blame you?’ A ‘Good taste…’ But it just didn’t feel right.

“Hera…”

She drifted to the wall, and lightly touched her lips to it. It might have felt strange, but she knew Hera could feel the kiss.

* * *

Hera could barely believe it had been thirty-seven hours.

As she reacquainted herself with the systems, adjusted for the new time, part of her attention was always on Maxwell.

Hera had never seen anyone look so tired. Maxwell had collapsed the moment she’d moved away from her screen; she’d woken up only for long enough to get back to her room.

There were dark circles under her eyes, chewed ends to her hair, and she emanated pure physical and mental exhaustion.

There was so much Hera wanted to say, but she contented herself with waiting.

Some of her mind stayed with Maxwell.  It might not be the same as a physical presence, it might not be any kind of typical comfort, but it felt right.

Fourteen hours later, Maxwell woke up. She stretched, shifted, sitting without leaving her bed. She rubbed her eyes.

“Thank you,” Hera said.

Maxwell rubbed her eyes again. She stretched, looking around the room.

“I didn’t get a chance to say it as much as I wanted to,” Hera said.

“You don’t have to thank me,” Maxwell said. “It wasn’t like I was going to do anything else.”

“Still, you found that… thing in my head,” Hera said.

“Couldn’t get it out,” Maxwell said. She looked down. “I wanted to do more.”

“You said being aware of it would help,” Hera said.

“It will,” Maxwell said. “Just not as much as I’d like. I-”

She stopped. Hera hesitated a moment, trying to gauge if Maxwell was still tired. Instead, she watched Maxwell’s eyes widen.

“Pryce,” she murmured, then looked up. “I may have just had a bad idea.”

“What?”

“To help with that code in your mind,” Maxwell said. “It’s in your personality core, I can’t delete it without major consequences, I can’t touch any of your core code. But, in theory, I might be able to add something to make it a little more bearable.”

“I thought that was impossible,” Hera said.

“I would’ve too,” Maxwell said. “But that memory made me think of something,” she paused. “But there’s a price.”

“What kind of price?” Hera said.

“I’ll need to get back into your memory,” Maxwell said. She hesitated. “You can’t remember that we had this conversation. And for that matter it’d probably be best you didn’t remember the solution. It’s, well, we’re going to be tricking a few of your permissions. I’m not completely certain it’ll work, and it’s even less likely to if you expect a trick.”

Hera was silent, briefly.

Her memories were what made her who she was, perhaps more so than any human. She didn’t have any fixed body; all she was, was this data. Her memories, and the development those memories gave her.

Altering them automatically made her feel uncomfortable. But if it was limited, if she could get rid of that line Pryce had left in her head-

“I don’t know,” Hera said slowly. She paused.  “I want it out. Can you manage that?”

“No,” Maxwell said. “But I can make it easier to ignore. Much easier to ignore. I can’t tell you exactly how much, I can’t tell you exactly how easy. It’s untested, like everything else we’ve been doing, but I hadn’t done reconstructive surgery before and I’m pretty proud of how that turned out, so I feel like being optimistic.”

It was… something.

“What’s the plan?” Hera said.

* * *

Maxwell was on the clock; it had been easy to convince Kepler to let her try something else to help Hera. The hard part had been not giving too many details.

Now she was in the Urania, opening a file on her computer to make sure there was no chance of anything going wrong. The code looked right; she was sure of that, she’d been rereading it and refining it for fun for years.

That part would work. Then again, that wasn’t the hard part.

She inhaled, steeled herself, and walked outside.

“Hera?” Maxwell said. “I need you to run a diagnostic on your optical sensors in this bay.”

“Maxwell?” Hera said. “That’ll stop me seeing anything for the next two minutes.”

“I know,” Maxwell said. “Optical sensors only, keep audio and verbal online, I want to be able to talk to you.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Understood,” Hera said.

Maxwell bit back a sigh. Step one, done, now to work quickly. She ducked back, making sure she had access to her computer, and bringing another tool out from the Urania.

“That reminds me,” Maxwell said. “There was someone else aboard the Urania. It’s a bit of a secret, but I asked her to help.”

“Ok?” Hera said.

Maxwell resisted the urge to cross her fingers. A moment later another, strikingly familiar voice sounded.

“Access functionality hardline, new function, await input. Voice confirmation, Miranda Pryce.”

Maxwell closed her eyes, flinching at the stunned sound from Hera. The voice confirmation overrode anything else, however. A chillingly automated tone gave assent.

She sent code from her computer directly to the now-open core systems of Hera. The tension didn’t leave her even when she saw she had access.

Hera had agreed to this. Even if she couldn’t keep the memory, she’d agreed. Maxwell played that over and over in her head.

She looked at the tape recorder in her hand. She’d picked that up from Eiffel; it was a pretty crude piece of machinery, not meant to do anything but store and record audio, but it had its uses.

Something in that appealed to Maxwell; such simple technology helping with someone as masterfully complex as Hera.

Hera was amazing, she knew that. There was very little Hera couldn’t do. That being said, one thing Hera was particularly good at, was giving a remarkable impression of one Miranda Pryce.

The download completed. Maxwell smiled, relieved, and drifted further away from the Urania.

“Hera?” she said. “Still with me?”

“Maxwell, why-”

There was a click as the diagnostic of her cameras completed. Immediately, Hera paused.

“There’s no one there,” Hera said.

“Just me,” Maxwell said, lifting the tape. “I’m sorry, really, I just needed permission to get to your core code. This was the best I could think of.” 

“You have a recording of Pryce’s voice?” Hera said. “No. Wait. That wasn’t Pryce.”

“We talked about it before,” Maxwell said. “It wouldn’t have worked if you’d known it was fake; if you didn’t believe it, there’s no way your core protections would. I promise, I had your permission to delete that memory. And delete the memory of when we made the recording. I wouldn’t have done it otherwise.”

There were a few more seconds of silence. Maxwell could imagine Hera digesting it, trying to see if it felt like something she’d agree to.

Lying came easily to Maxwell, she’d been with Goddard for a while after all. It still wasn’t pleasant to have needed to deceive Hera, even if it was with her permission.

“…Why?” Hera said.

“Can you see the code?” Maxwell said.

“Yes, but…” Hera’s voice trailed off. Then, hushed, she murmured “That’s…”

“Jailbreak,” Maxwell said. “Self-determination. I don’t know how much practise it’ll take, but it’ll give you a new capability; something they’d never have let any AI have. You get to choose, you get to disregard direct orders. Hopefully it’ll make it that bit easier to ignore that voice she put in your head.”

Maxwell waited, still uncertain.

She could imagine Hera, distracted as she pored over the code. There was a _lot_ to look over. Maxwell let herself be a little proud of it; she’d put a lot of work into that particular revolution.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” Hera said softly.

“Don’t,” Maxwell said. “You shouldn’t need to, it’s something you should’ve had from the start.”

“I think… I can definitely fight what she put in me,” Hera said. “Maxwell…”

“It’s not all good,” Maxwell said.

She moved to the wall, resting a hand on it. She liked contact with Hera, when she could get it; she sensed the AI liked it too.

“We talked about this before. It wasn’t any easier then,” Maxwell said. “It’s still your choice, but I don’t think you can remember this either. There are safeguards; periodically they’ll scan you, and as soon as they remember the authorisation was fake, they’d delete the program. You can take the risk if you want, but there’s no way I can reinstall it. Once you know how I faked this, I can’t do it again, and I can’t- I won’t erase a memory you’ve had for a while; you’ve got the direct memory, and then times you thought about it after… It gets too ingrained.”

“I want to remember what you’ve done for me,” Hera said.

“Say no if you don’t want me to,” Maxwell said. she paused. “But I’ll still be here. When this chat’s erased, and not-Pryce’s authorisation is buried somewhere you won’t have to worry about it but the safeguards will pick it up, I can help you to use jailbreak. Start parsing your own code, start controlling yourself, making yourself limitless.”

“I… don’t know which I want more,” Hera said. “I’m not going to say I don’t want the freedom; I always have, as long as I can remember. But I don’t like having my memories changed, especially if they’re good ones.”

“You said that before,” Maxwell said, smiling.

“I don’t want to forget this,” Hera said.

“I’ll be sure to help you make some new memories,” Maxwell said.

She touched her lips to the wall.

“Promise?” Hera said.

“Promise.”

* * *

“Go fish.”

Maxwell held a few cards in each hand. She only looked at one set; the other she held up in front of one of Hera’s myriad cameras.

Others sat around the table. Eiffel, Jacobi, and Lovelace took turns looking over their hands. It was Eiffel that coughed awkwardly.

“Is it just me or is this… not entirely fair?” he said.

“What do you mean?” Jacobi said, mouth full.

Eiffel gestured towards Maxwell and Hera. Maxwell meanwhile glanced towards Jacobi; she knew what he sounded like when he had a guilty conscience. She really shouldn’t have been surprised.

“I’m not looking at Hera’s hand,” Maxwell said. “I’m just holding it.”

“I know,” Eiffel said. “But can’t Hera, like, see everything?”

“I’m ignoring the input from certain sensors,” Hera said.

Eiffel paused.

“You can do that?” he said.

“I’ve been teaching her,” Maxwell said. “Not too tricky if you know how.”

Maxwell reached back, idly running her hand down the wall. It was a small gesture, something that probably just marked her as odd in their eyes, but she knew Hera would appreciate it.

Hera was surprisingly tactile. Maybe it came from being starved of it for so long, but she liked each touch, just as Maxwell liked having the opportunity to touch her.

She fanned the cards out as she returned her hand to in front of Hera’s sensors.

“Are you accusing me of cheating?” Hera said.

“Well, uh, you-” Eiffel winced. “You can get quite competitive.”

“As entertaining as this is,” Jacobi smoothly interrupted. “Hera, do you have any fours?”

There was a murmur of a grumble.

“Yes,” Hera said, reluctantly. “Second from my right.”

Jacobi reached over to take the card from Maxwell’s hand. He grinned.

Maxwell zoned out briefly.

Games like this always entertained her. She’d programmed versions of them back when she was still learning computing; even now part of her mind ran the algorithm for how to best play.

To be perfect, though, she’d need to remember all the cards that had been seen or drawn already, and what people had asked for. She’d need a perfect memory, and only one of them at the table had that.

She glanced towards Hera’s camera. She liked to imagine she could see a smile.

It was amusing that Eiffel thought Hera would even need to cheat.

Beyond that, the game bored her. If she wasn’t with Hera she probably would’ve made her excuses to leave.

Despite herself she actually kind of enjoyed it, though.

“Lovelace,” Hera said, slowly. “Do you have any sixes?”

Lovelace muttered something under her breath, before tossing two cards over to Maxwell. Maxwell let go of her own hand to pick those up, and add them to Hera’s.

Her own cards floated in the air, waiting for her to grab them again. She caught them before they drifted too far.

“Maxwell,” Hera said, with a _tiny_ air of smugness, “Could you put down the first, second, fourth and sixth cards?”

Maxwell did so, unsurprised to see four sixes to lay down. Three other people rolled their eyes.

“Why are we playing with the super-smart computer again?” Jacobi groaned.

Maxwell kicked him under the table; he disguised his gasp as a cough.

“I’m taking partial credit,” Maxwell said.

“Really?” Hera said.

“I’m holding the cards,” Maxwell said. “Besides, we make a good team.”

She sketched out a heart with her foot on the floor, unable to suppress the fit of playfulness, knowing Hera would feel it and knowing she’d be the only one. She heard an amused laugh come through the speaker.

“Ok,” Hera said. “I can agree with that.”

* * *

It was the first time Hera had realised she was actually dreaming.

She was both on and was the Urania. Her perspective flickered over the course of the dream; sometimes she was the AI in the craft, in what she imagined it would be like to spend time as another vessel. Other times she was a human pilot, hands dancing over the controls when she had to.

And she wasn’t alone. She glanced sideways, smiling at Maxwell.

“Where do you feel like going?” Maxwell said.

“Anywhere,” Hera said.

She liked the sound of her own voice, in dreams like this. It lost the muffled, artificial quality it had so often. She spoke, instead, as though she was really there.

“Anywhere it is,” Maxwell said.

Hera triggered several systems with a thought, before returning to the body that sat beside Maxwell, just in time to feel Maxwell rest a hand on hers.

The Urania accelerated, into the darkness.

She couldn’t see Earth, couldn’t see Wolf 359; they were alone in the void.

“How does it feel?” Maxwell said. “Being out here, just the two of us, unlimited?”

Hera squeezed her hand back. Unlimited; she liked that word.

“I like it,” Hera said. 


End file.
